Many Brits can't be bothered to use their fruity fondleslabs once they have them and don't think they're worth the money, a new study has found.
The survey, by money-off coupon site MyVoucherCodes, showed that over a quarter of UK iPad users only used their Apple tablet once a week and one in 10 don't even bother with it that …

I use my smartphone for that.

Yup

Everyone I know who has one, including myself, can't put the damn thing down.

You've got to wonder, though, what kind of demographic was targeted by "MyVoucherCodes" when they did this survey and the validity of these findings. We're presumably talking about the kind of person that spends their time trawling a website looking to see what they can get on the cheap. The sort of person that buys something they probably don't really need but can't afford to pass up simply because they got 10% off? The kind of person that would, for example, buy themselves an iPad to massage their spending compulsion only to discover they didn't REALLY need it that much?

re: It's not the same

"Apple owners won't really understand the benefits of the Transformer until they own one. They will continue to believe the line that it's just a tablet with a keyboard... It's FAR from just that."

I use my iPad to create and perform music - mainly through apps, but also plugging instruments – and this one of the *main* things I use the device for. Would you be able to explain the benefits of an Asus Transformer over an iPad in this instance?

Don’t get me wrong the Transformer is a lovely piece of kit – I have a couple of friends who own one and both are delighted with theirs, but their needs are different from mine (for that matter, both of theirs differ from the other, but the Transformer does them proud).

One tool isn’t inherently superior to another - you need to know what the user needs, before making the judgement.

Even if you swap around the figures, they still mean the same. Fewer people are satisfied with their iPad that you might expect. Only half of your customers think your product is good value for money? Only three-quarters of owners have a use for your product? Those are not great results.

For the record, I am an iPad owner, I use it often, and I fully expect that these results would be the same or worse for Android tablets.

@James Howat

But to put it in perspective, lots of people have cars - a proportion don't use them every day.

All sales and marketing is hit and miss. You could argue that Apple's is highly (overly?) successful as they are able to sell their products to people who don't want them and don't use them. Maybe this just goes to add further evidence to the possibility that Apple is really a marketing company, not a computer company?

Confused of Epping...

Flipped around those numbers don't look any better. At the pricetag of an iPad if 86% of the people bought it themselves then at least 86% should find it useful. Instead, only 73% do. And if only 54% of the people who bought any other product found it to be a good value then you'd see it vanishing from the market within a year or two. Realistically a successful product should have somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% at least who think it was worth their money.

I will say, however, that I don't really consider this study to be very trustworthy. Consider the source: this isn't exactly a trusted consumer reporting publication we're talking about here. Much as I'd like to take the numbers and run with them I sincerly doubt their accuracy.

@LarsG

This amuses me greatly.

I won an iPad and thought I am anti-Apple decided this would be a good opportunity to see what all the fuss is about.

I have found some uses for it other than surfing the internet, but i'ts far more limited than a netbook and almkst anythjng that would be good to use it for costs more for the app. The apps also seem to cost more than the Android equivalents, which in some cases are free.

Over all it's a shiny toy for people who'd rather spend money than make effort.

well if you don't want it

For the record.

I kept the iPad to try it out and it is useful as a secondary device to the EeePC. Were kt not for the fact I've been without a PC for a couple of months I'd have tried to swap it for a cheap droid tab -- still might but I've lost the bix now so I know the resell value has halved.

As for a "proper PC" I knkw it wasn't asked of me but I'd say a device on which the user can install any software they see fit, which can cary out general purpose computing tasks. The iPad is an appliance on which certain designated tasks can be carried out.

Step back a moment, and just think about how much crap you know about computers. Then about how much time it took you to acquire that knowledge. Then about all the other things you (and I) could have been doing in that time if we hadn't had to.

mouse, keyboard, screen and total flexibility in how you use it, what you install on it etc and not some walled garden that's locked down to prevent you hurting it (which is, coincidentally why the iPad is ideal for newbies of the 'older generation' who are terrified of 'proper computers').

The iPad is gorgeous, the user experience is lovely, I was honestly upset I couldn't find a use for it that made me think it was being utilised but it ended up back in the box inside a week which was a huge waste, least this way it's being used and has broken down a bit of the technofear, I can send him email and he can do his own internet research and shopping instead of asking me all the time.

@Kieran

@AC - What's a Proper Computer?

To em, at least, a proper computer is something that you can have full control of without having to pay a fee to a third party. Something you can hack away at and write your own software for. Admittedly, Android systems are not as completely open in this respect as they could be, but you can download a (free) IDE, install it on your PC, attach your Android device, and transfer and run software that you have written directly onto it. You can also directly access the file system and diddle with it to your hearts content.

With a bog-styandard laptop or desktop PC, you can do these things directly on the device, without having to involce a second machine at all. With Apple's current set of devices, you have to pay Apple for the ability to put software you have written on the device, or allow others to do so. As far as I am aware, you also have very limited access to the file system. I don't know if it is true of the current generation of devices, but with previous ones, you had to use the hideous iTunes just to transfer your files on and off the device.

"I'm kicking myself for not getting one with larger storage."

Did you expext otherwise?

Every aspect of Apple's designs are to maximize revenue. An SD card slot would just mean no one would buy their even more overpriced 64gb models and ensures that those lower end models will be obsolete within a couple of years.

Strange

I got my wife an iPad2 on the day of release, and she's used it extensively every day since. As a ready recipe reference in the kitchen (no keyboard to collect dirt), ebook reader, web browser, email reader, and much more. As a result, she has barely touched her laptop, with even less need to since the release of iOS 5

Not only that, but during the time when she's not using it, the kids love the chance to avail of some of the games and drawing apps.

I only wish that more of these selfish, unimaginative people who aren't using them would list them for sale and drive the second-hand prices down so that I could get one for myself :-/

You have some strange kind of allergy

to LCD screens? The iPad screen is better than most laptops and all netbooks. Unless you're the kind of person that insists on sticking your nose in a book then the iPad screen is just fine for reading at arms length (where anyone past 40 with normal eyesight will tend to hold it anyway).

I wonder if we'll get the same kind of whining from you after the Kindle Fire is released (and Android's font handling is demonstrably worse than iOS)?

"Unless you're the kind of person that insists on sticking your nose in a book then the iPad screen is just fine for reading at arms length"

You suggest holding 600+ grams of tablet *at arms length* for a number of hours? Who are you, Hercules?

"I wonder if we'll get the same kind of whining from you after the Kindle Fire is released"

Was that for me? Why, thank you. The Fire's 169dpi display isn't particular useful either, so cut the crap about whining. This issue isn't about Apple, it's about making poor design decisions - and have them defended right, left and center by people with nothing better to do with their time.

Most people

have arms that come down to crotch level and can hold a book at arms length in their lap with ease. Orangutans need only apply if I'd suggested holding the book between your knees. Don't do a lot of reading do you?

Or perhaps you insist, Jobs' style, that we should STAND while we read, necks bent, and looking just slightly idiotic. Well, that's up to you. Me, I'll go on thinking that half-a-kilo-plus is somewhat more than I like holding as if it was a book.

@Windrose - let me get this right

you're trying to stretch the definition of "at arms length" in a way that HELPS my argument (with arms locked rigid most people would be holding a book resting on their legs above the knee, your Orangutan jibe implied that your arms were too SHORT to reach even your lap.

Add to that you're making what may be most charitably be described as controversial remarks on an Internet forum and are receiving responses that would be regarded as mild in almost any debating chamber you care to mention, and you complain that I'm not being courteous to you? You're two kinds of idiot for thinking you'll get any better than that.